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December 9, 2007

I've been doing some reading from a book entitled, "What the Buddha Taught", by Walpola Rahula. As mentioned previously, my wife is Thai, and a Buddhist.

While reading, my mind began to wander a bit (which is ironic, given the teachings of the Buddha regarding mental accuracy and focus). I started to realize a very sad fact of my Christian upbringing...

I will never be able to remove the evil tentacles of Christianity from my brain. It's got me, for the rest of my life. While I can completely and honestly know that the ideas of salvation, condemnation and imaginary friends are silly and childish, I will always take a tiny bit of doubt with me, everywhere I go.

If something terrible were to happen in my life, something catastrophic, the question would arise of whether I am being punished by BibleGod for not believing in Him. When I am on my deathbed, I will be forced to ask myself, "Do I really know that Hell doesn't exist"? The amount of relevance I'll assign this might be miniscule, but nevertheless it will be there, like an old hockey injury that never quite heals.

Now, allow me to contrast this for you, so that you understand why I find this incredibly sad.

My wife, who is Buddhist, does not believe in salvation, condemnation, or God. The discussion is not even valid to her. When she laughs at these Christian ideas, it is genuine, innocent laughter at something so strange. While I am busy combating Christianity, she is telling me, "Why don't you just let people believe what they want, even if it's stupid"? She will never have any doubts about her destiny, because she's never been brainwashed with these quirky Christian concepts. I, on the other hand, am always combating Christianity because I was brainwashed, and these concepts can never entirely leave me. I take it personal.

I wish that my mind could be completely liberated from Christianity. I wish I could dig out the rotten parts and discard them like a bad piece of fruit. The parts that tell me that I am evil for leaving the "flock". The parts that tell me I will burn for eternity because I don't believe in invisible men, regardless of whether I am a good person or not. The parts that tell me that bad things happen to me, or may happen to me, because of my apostasy.

Non-Christians can never understand what it's like, and Christians obviously think I'm "misguided" to begin with. That fact of the matter is that these diseased portions of my mind can never be repaired. I never asked for Jesus or God, or Heaven or Hell. It was forced on me by a Christian society, and a Christian family. It soon will be forced on elementary school children when they learn about Creationism in our public schools. And what Christians don't tell you is that once you get Jesus on the brain, He never goes away.